Black Church Blue Prologue

Full Prologue

Book trailer - https://youtu.be/_Ljsqzc3a80

They were all standing around my hospital bed with reverent faces. Seven people in the room, and not a mumbling word from any of them, not even the white-coated, Pakistani doctor who lingered in the back, seemingly uncertain whether or not to intervene. A lone crocodile tear trickled down my daughter's high-boned cheek. As if denying an inevitable truth, my beloved Pastor shook his balding, gray head.

They acted like I was already dead, already deserving of the sweet memories and flattering accolades that would surely flow like crystal waters down the great mountain of sorrow. All of the kind words and sullen faces and soggy handkerchieves would join hands to make their way onto the sage ... a ceremonious farewell after approving eyeballs searched my lifeless carcass for the very last time, after the descending coffin lid sealed in the darkness and set in motion the arrival of God's Glorious Light.

As far as I could tell, my misguided family members, friends, and well-wishers had jumped the gun. They were casting me into the here-after when I was still in the here-and-now.

The great writer, David Eagleman, once said, "There are indeed three deaths: the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the very last time.

Had all of these familiar co-laborers in the Kingdom missed the memo? Had all of the decent-and-in-order dying rules been cast aside? What was the big rush to tuck me away? Was Babe Ruth's reincarnated ghost appearing in the World Series later that night? Was Muhammad Ali and Smokin' Joe Frazier coming out of retirement to bash each other's brains in one more time?

If I still had my favorite walking cane, the one with the wood grain handle and metal tip, I would've "popped"! somebody's thick noggin; the same way I did that crackhead when he stole the ring off Buster's corpse. But I had already turned the cane over to the church Elders- who had enshrined it in a glass case and hung it on the wall for future generations to see. They called it the miracle cane in reference to the events surrounding that June night back in 1993. They couldn't have picked a more fitting title. After all, it did save our lives.

That's why Rabbi Bernstein had come all the way from New York City. A rabbi/historian and representative from the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, he wanted to know the truth. Everybody he contacted had said the same thing. "Talk to Mama Kizzy. She was there. She can tell you the whole truth".

An old- Santa Clause bearded white man- with a steamy red face and bad heart, I wasn't sure he could handle the whole truth. I could tell him why silver coins kept mysteriously appearing next to the Shewbread when the church was a Jewish Synagogue; or the reason an eccentric oilman had built the old ghostly Silver Dollar Hotel directly across the street. But the miracles that happened during the hurricane or how we escaped the ball of liquid fire; I mean, reliving those tense moments might overload his feeble ticker. I didn't want the Jewish community coming after me for pushing the poor man into heaven before time.

He was sitting there in an old hospital chair next to my bed, tight-lipped like the rest of them, rocking back and forth. His lazy rhythm reminded me of my grandmother's giant pecan tree, bowing, sleepily, in strong winds. I finally asked, "Rabbi? Are you sure you're ready to hear the story? Can you really stomach this nerve-racking journey back in time?"

He didn't say anything. He just kept swaying. Not knowing his shuckling routine was a Jewish prayer salute to those who had passed on, I took that to mean he could. If not, what better place for an old shuckling Jew to have a heart attack than at M D Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas? With world-renowned cardiovascular expert, Dr. Michael DeBakey, and all his little protégée heart surgeons, running around the Medical Center, surely someone in the bunch would pull him through.

And so, I pushed up on my pillow and steadied my emotions for one last run. I chronicled the events that had led to our fall from grace and how our lives had been torn asunder. I relived the desperate moments during the hurricane and how the miracles imprinted our souls forever.

I reached deep into the dormant cavities of my mind and brushed off the cobwebs of time. And then I said to him, "This is the whole truth."